


Pilgrims

by moonix



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Exy (All For The Game), Hitchhiking, Light Smut, M/M, Roadtrips, Stargazing, Summer, The Van Life TM, Trans Character, Trans Neil Josten, Weird roadside attractions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:26:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26633584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonix/pseuds/moonix
Summary: “Pointless.” The word rolled from his mouth like a loose stone, jiggled free when the van went over a bump in the road. Neil’s eyes slid sideways, then back to the road.“Running, or existence in general?” he asked.“Both,” Andrew said. “All of it.”Neil hummed. Then he said, “Grab a map. Any map.”
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 46
Kudos: 393





	Pilgrims

**Author's Note:**

  * For [djhedy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/djhedy/gifts).



> Many thanks to bigmcworm for giving this a read when I wasn't sure about posting it!!
> 
> Here's a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4hy0W4mDpGepAxjzUqRIyw?si=S8NLL4xLS9eeCVy-LM3m4Q) on Spotify to match if you want some chill tunes while reading.

On a regular Wednesday morning, just after breakfast, Andrew left his apartment, closed the door behind him, and started walking.

He didn’t care where he walked, as long as it was away. There hadn’t even been anything specific that had driven him out, no last straw, no obvious catalyst. Something in him had just decided to go.

So he went.

He’d been walking along the highway for an hour and roughly seven minutes, the sun scraping along his skin like a blunt knife, when an old, peeling camper van juddered to a stop a little ahead of him. The midday quiet was dried up and sharp, a jagged crust of salt left behind by the slow, cresting waves of cricket song and distant traffic. A figure stuck his head out of the window, looking round for Andrew and watching him approach.

“I can take you to Sacramento, if that’s where you’re headed,” he said.

Andrew stopped walking. It was a mistake; he’d been fine while he’d kept going—a thing in motion staying in motion and all that—but now that his feet had remembered how to stand on solid ground, they didn’t seem to want to continue.

He squinted at the van. The paint had rusted away in places, or been shoddily patched up with a different colour. Crackly music drifted out of the open window. The guy driving it looked to be a bit younger than Andrew, with freckles all down the bony arm that was dangling out the window and a thin scar swiping up from his mouth. A pair of cheap sunglasses was pushed up into his reddish brown hair, which was streaked with premature grey or maybe just bleached from the sun.

“Honestly,” the guy said. “You look crispier than a two-pack of Pringles. Don’t you have sunscreen?”

Andrew shrugged a little, spreading his hands. He hadn’t exactly packed anything. All he had was his wallet and keys, his phone in one pocket, battery at twenty-two percent, some empty gum wrappers and a crumpled up receipt for a coffee to go. Probably a condom or two in his wallet.

“So, are you getting in?”

“Sacramento,” Andrew said, squinting down the dusty road ahead. “How far is that.”

“Two hours, give or take,” the guy shrugged. “Definitely too far to walk in this heat, but suit yourself.”

Andrew glanced down the visible stretch of highway behind him—nothing but dry grass, shiny patches of asphalt, and sun-bleached rocks—and got in the car.

-

“I’m Neil, by the way,” the driver offered after ten minutes of silence, like he’d only just decided.

“Andrew,” Andrew said.

Neil shifted gears and the van made a vaguely worrying noise.

“Here,” Neil said, twisting around to fish a bottle of water from a cooler behind his seat and handing it to him. “You look a bit dehydrated.”

Andrew rolled the bottle between his hands, then held it to his face and pressed the cold plastic against his hot skin.

It hurt, and he pressed harder for a moment before unscrewing the cap and taking a sip, then another. Before he knew it, the bottle was almost empty.

“You’re not really going to Sacramento, are you?” Neil asked when he was done.

“No,” Andrew said.

Neil nodded and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel.

“What about you,” Andrew asked after a moment, looking at the tangle of road maps Neil had shoved into the back to make space on the passenger seat.

“Hmm,” Neil made. “Dunno yet. I’m just kind of seeing where the road takes me.”

“Running away?” Andrew guessed.

Neil made a little so-so gesture with his hand. More freckles covered the back of it, intricate like a lace glove.

“More like running towards. Except I don’t know what yet.”

“If you say so.”

The music changed into something more melancholic. Andrew looked out of the window, but the landscape wasn’t any more interesting than what he’d left behind. He looked back at Neil.

“Pointless.” The word rolled from his mouth like a loose stone, jiggled free when the van went over a bump in the road. Neil’s eyes slid sideways, then back to the road.

“Running, or existence in general?” he asked.

“Both,” Andrew said. “All of it.”

Neil hummed. Then he said, “Grab a map. Any map.”

-

They didn’t go to Sacramento.

Neil stopped at a gas station and Andrew sat sideways in the passenger seat, feet dangling out into the hot spill of sunshine as he smoked one of the cigarettes he’d found in the glove compartment, smoke billowing like candy cotton in the lazy air. The parking lot smelled like baked tarmac and exhaust fumes and dry grass. Neil returned with a bag in each hand, dropping them in Andrew’s lap before making his way around to the driver’s side again. Curious, Andrew poked at the bags, twitching them open between thumb and ring finger while holding the cigarette.

There were a couple of ridiculous, touristy t-shirts for places that were nowhere even close to this gas station. He found a bottle of sunscreen, something to soothe burns, a toothbrush, a packet of wet wipes, chewing gum, a selection of snacks and some more water.

Neil ripped open a protein bar with his teeth while starting the motor, which took three tries. Andrew tossed the rest of his cigarette away and pulled his legs back into the car, closing the door just as Neil peeled out of the parking lot like a pack of rabid dogs was chasing him.

“In a hurry much?” Andrew asked, unwrapping a sandwich and ignoring the burn cream.

“Minor disagreement with a trucker,” Neil shrugged. “Thought it best not to stick around.”

“Huh.”

They drove on. Andrew ate his way through a packet of cookies, then dozed in his seat until the sun started to lower itself carefully into the molten hot horizon, flimsy clouds hovering like sighs of contentment.

Ahead the road still stretched for miles, a languid limb draped across the landscape.

Neil stopped outside a lonesome diner. Cricket song simmered in the shrubbery and twilight wound around their ankles like a friendly cat. Andrew stretched, cracking his spine, and followed Neil inside the blissfully air-conditioned diner.

“So,” Neil said when they were seated, plasticky leather creaking under their bodies. He tucked his chin into his palm and looked at Andrew with bright, chlorine blue eyes, fanning himself with the laminated menu. “You aren’t going to Sacramento, you smoke but you didn’t take any cigarettes when you decided to wander the highway at noon like some sort of mirage, and everything is pointless. Tell me about that.”

“What are you, my shrink?”

Neil’s mouth quirked.

“I’m just nobody,” he said, shrugging. “Might as well talk to me.”

He was good-looking. Not in a conventionally attractive sort of way, but—interesting. Andrew wanted to solve the jigsaw puzzle of his freckles. Bleach himself in his cleansing gaze.

“There is nothing to tell,” Andrew said.

“Nothing and nobody,” Neil mused, flicking the menu over to glance at it. “We’re going to make a good team.”

-

Neil had a twenty-minute power nap in the back of the van while Andrew stomped around the sparse woods behind the diner, smoking and watching as the indigo night shaved off the last, orange rind of the sun. Then Neil drove and Andrew watched the world glide past, dark silk and steel wool, adorned with the occasional flicker of light, the blushing pink moon.

They talked about aliens and alternate realities. The vastness of the universe. Anything but themselves.

It was coming up on three in the morning when Neil finally flagged and turned into an empty truck stop.

“You can sleep in the back if you want,” he offered.

Andrew stared at him.

“It’s your car.”

“So?” Neil said. “I have a spare sleeping bag. I can just camp out on the ground, I don’t mind.”

Andrew looked down at the parade of insect bites marching up his ankles. Neil grinned like he’d noticed and got out his sleeping bag, shaking it out and draping it over a patch of grass.

“You can use the stuff I bought, you know,” Neil told him. “I didn’t poison it. There are much easier ways of killing you if I wanted to.”

“Reassuring,” Andrew said.

They brushed their teeth side by side with a cup of water, spitting the excess into the bushes, stars speckled like toothpaste above them. Andrew walked a little further into the loose constellations of trees to take a piss, but something about all the open space around him made him stopper up. He zipped back up and went back, stepping over the lump of Neil’s sleeping bag on the ground.

“Performance issues?” Neil teased sleepily. “I have a shewee if that helps.”

“A what,” Andrew asked, feeling his way around the van in the dark.

“It’s a device that-”

“Never mind,” Andrew said, “I don’t have any issues.”

“Right,” Neil hummed. “Night, then. Don’t hit your head on the-”

_Wham_.

“Thanks for the warning,” Andrew grumbled, rubbing his temple.

“You’re welcome,” Neil smirked.

-

Andrew hadn’t actually expected to fall asleep.

The van was an enclosed space, there was no one around for miles, and Neil was out like a light within seconds, but it was still exposed, still unfamiliar. The mattress was lumpy and the interior smelled vaguely like an apple that had been left in a school bag for too long. A breeze drifted through the open windows but didn’t reach low enough to do him any good, his bladder was uncomfortably full, and his insect bites itched and sang now that he had nothing else to focus on.

And yet, he fell asleep.

When he woke, Neil was already up, though it couldn’t have been much later than eight. The sky was a pearly white, the air filmy and humid, and Neil was sitting cross-legged next to his rolled-up sleeping bag and a small camping cooker.

“Coffee?” he asked, holding out a tin cup. He looked a lot more put-together than Andrew, even though he’d driven for most of the night, slept on the ground, and woken up earlier.

Unfair.

The coffee was piping hot and strong. Neil had a couple sugar packets from gas stations stashed away and Andrew emptied three into his cup and swished it around before downing it.

He peered at the trees, but they provided even less cover now in daylight, so he wasn’t even going to try getting his dick out. He’d just have to wait until the next rest stop.

The thought alone made the urge to relieve himself stronger, and he grit his teeth.

“I can drive,” he offered, but Neil ignored him and slipped into the driver’s seat.

They stopped for breakfast on the way. Andrew freshened up in the bathroom and put on one of the atrocious t-shirts Neil had bought him before ordering a shitload of pancakes. Around midday, Neil steered them up a winding road in pursuit of a decrepit sign advertising a waterfall and spectacular view. There were barely any other cars in the parking lot halfway up the hill and no people on the hiking path, and they walked in silence that was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, it just was.

The view from the platform was mediocre at best, the waterfall more of a stream that sauntered casually down the hillside.

“Breath-taking,” Neil said sarcastically, leaning so far over the railing that Andrew had to stifle the urge to grab him by the scruff of his neck and pull him back. The sun broke through the clouds for a moment, grooming Neil’s hair. The wind tasted wet, puckering and scrunching around them like soaked fabric, and Andrew slowly shuffled closer to the railing and peered down.

“Does the sound help?” Neil asked, turning his back on the water.

“Help with what?”

“Your performance issues,” Neil smirked, waving a hand. “Some people have to pee when they hear the sound of running water…”

“Fuck off,” Andrew said.

Neil laughed and stretched, long and languid and lithe, and Andrew imagined slipping a hand into his loose slacks and getting him off there on the edge of the waterfall. Thought about going to his knees in the dirt, swallowing him down; holding him steady and safe with a hand on his back the whole time.

He looked away, and bent a bit further over the railing.

-

That afternoon, it started to rain.

Neil pulled into a deserted camping lot when it became harder and harder to see the road. They sat in the back of the van with the doors open, and Neil turned on a tangled bunch of string lights and made tea with his camping cooker, kneeling on the mattress and looking fuzzy and soft in the low light. Andrew held his bare feet out into the rain and unearthed his last packet of cookies. His phone had died the night before, and he turned it around and around in his hands, but didn’t feel any urge to turn it back on.

It wasn’t like anyone would notice his absence.

“Here,” Neil said, sitting down cross-legged beside him and holding one of the cups of tea out to him. He blew on his, steam clouding his face, and sipped it slowly with his gaze in the rain.

“How long have you been on the road,” Andrew asked him.

“Mm,” Neil said, cupping both hands around his tea and adjusting his leg. “Three years, give or take. Since my mom died.”

Andrew tapped his fingers against his leg and swallowed a mouthful of tea. It was hot and bitter and hurt on the way down.

“What about you?” Neil said, getting comfortable against the side of the van.

“What about me,” Andrew echoed.

Neil’s eyes were bright and shrewd over the rim of his cup.

“You strike me as the sort of person who sticks around for someone else, rather than himself,” he said.

“Again,” Andrew said, “you’re not my fucking shrink.”

“But you have one,” Neil deducted correctly. Andrew saw no need to dispute or confirm and stayed silent. “So, who is it? That you stick around for?”

“No one,” Andrew answered. Then, because he couldn’t leave well enough alone apparently, he added: “They all left.”

Neil looked down at his empty cup, swishing around the last dregs at the bottom, then glanced out at the rain again.

“So now you’ve left too.”

Thunder shook a distant part of the sky. Pebbles of rain pelted the outside of the van. Andrew could see spidery cracks of lightning in the clouds and thought of Bee telling him about the Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery with gold or silver lacquer: highlighting the parts where it had come undone and been mended as an important part of its history, rather than hiding it or throwing it away. He’d rolled his eyes at her and accused her of sentimentality.

After all, things that were broken or no longer needed should be disposed of.

“You could stick with me for a bit,” Neil said thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“I don’t even have a change of underwear,” Andrew snorted.

“Easily fixed,” Neil said, then grinned. “Your shy bladder needs some work, though.”

Andrew picked up one of the pillows piled into the back of the van and threw it at his face. Neil didn’t waste any time in throwing it back and Andrew caught it, let himself lie back and tucked it under his head, dangling his legs outside.

“Do you often pick up strangers in the middle of nowhere and invite them into your bed?” he asked, looking pointedly at the mattress that was taking up most of the space.

“Sometimes,” Neil said without missing a beat. “Do you?”

“Sometimes,” Andrew echoed. “If I meet a hot guy who’s willing to have his dick sucked.”

He waited for a reaction, but Neil merely shrugged and took the last cookie from the packet.

“It’s not so much about the dick sucking for me.”

“No?” Andrew asked, fiddling with the string lights. “What, then?”

“Not being alone for a little while,” Neil said thoughtfully. “Getting to hear someone’s story. Sharing space. Walking a bit of the way together.”

Andrew turned his head and looked at him.

“Sentimental,” he said, though it didn’t have the same righteous ring to it as when he’d said it to Bee.

Neil’s mouth curled up in a wry little smile.

“And I suppose you’re never sentimental about anything.”

“Nope,” Andrew said. “I’m just here because I have nothing better to do, and you have a car. Albeit a crappy one.”

“And here I was thinking you were here to suck my dick,” Neil grinned.

“Well,” Andrew said, his stomach scrunching up like so much paper, “that could be arranged. If you wanted.”

Neil hummed and looked out at the rain again.

“I’ll think about it.”

-

That night, Andrew slept in the front seat while Neil slept in the back. The next morning Neil drove them to a shopping mall where Andrew bought a few changes of clothes and Neil picked up a paisley print shirt that should have looked awful on him but somehow didn’t. They dropped everything off at a laundromat while they got milkshakes, walked around the mostly empty mall and tried to find the most hideous window display.

They ended up in a toy store, wandering the aisles of stuffed animals in the back where it was quiet save for the nondescript piano music drizzling from a speaker. Andrew picked up a small, velvety pug plushie with a mournful face that was reduced because it was missing an eye, then put it back. Neil got on his tiptoes to grab a giant stuffed shark from the top shelf, then switched it for an even bigger seal.

“Comfy,” he said, squidging it between his hands. “Should I get this? I feel like I don’t have enough pillows.”

“You have six,” Andrew pointed out.

“Yeah, but. Seven’s a magic number, right?”

“I don’t think that applies to pillows.”

“Did I ask what you think?” Neil scoffed.

“You literally did,” Andrew said.

“That was a rhetorical question. Of course I’m getting it,” Neil said, rolling his eyes. “Come on. And don’t forget your dog.”

“I don’t need toys,” Andrew said dismissively. Neil doubled back to grab the sad pug anyway, paid for both things, and then made Andrew carry them for him as they went to pick up their clothes. On the way out Neil ducked into an outdoorsy store and got a few camping supplies he was running low on, and they stopped for lunch at a Waffle House where Andrew paid for the food.

They drove for the rest of the afternoon, then found a motel for the night. Andrew locked the door behind him and took a long shower. He was half-hard but too tired to bother, put on a pair of boxers and a tank top and sat on the bed in the muted circle of light from the lamp beside it, staring at the dark screen of the TV in the corner.

There was a knock on his door and he was on his feet before his mind had caught up.

“Hey,” Neil said sheepishly. “You still up?”

“Obviously,” Andrew said.

Neil held up two bottles.

“I have wine or squash,” he said. “No guarantee if the wine is any good, though.”

Andrew stepped aside to let him in. They sat on the bed, Neil with his back to the lamp, his edges fizzing red like someone had spilled grenadine on him. Andrew wanted to lick him all over. Instead, he opened the bottle of wine and took a swig.

“Verdict?” Neil wanted to know, trying to pour some of the squash into a bottle of water and vice versa.

“Well, it is definitely… wine.”

“Oh, good.” Neil chuckled. “Here, I’ll swap.”

The squash was too concentrated, coating the inside of Andrew’s mouth with a sugary residue. Neil took a small sip of wine and pulled a face before handing it back. He switched on the TV and found an old Bob Ross episode, then flopped down on the bed with his arms above his head. He was wearing faded stripey pyjama pants and an oversized t-shirt advertising a place called Hole N’’ The Rock in Utah, his hair was wet and tousled from the shower, and Andrew was strangely mesmerised by the bump of his wrist bones casting shadows onto his night-pale skin.

“Tell me something,” Neil demanded, looking up at the ceiling with wine-stained lips.

“Geoffrey Lewis died of a heart attack July second this year,” Andrew recited. “He was sixty-three, had a wife and two children, donated to charity, was known in his gun club for throwing the best birthday parties.”

“Okay,” Neil said, frowning.

“He was the last,” Andrew continued, taking a long swig of wine.

“The last what?”

“Ironically, Drake was the first,” Andrew said, ignoring him. “By the time he got to me there were only pieces left to pick over, but he was the first of them to die. Isn’t life funny sometimes?”

Neil was quiet. Andrew watched the ceiling fan go round and round.

“I officially outlived all of them, now.”

Something had wrapped around his chest and was squeezing tight, making his diaphragm jump. He realised it was laughter—the painful kind, the stuff that was like sandpaper, that stuck in his throat like too-hot fries.

“Oh,” Neil said, finally understanding something.

“You don’t understand anything,” Andrew told him. Drank more wine. “You don’t know me.”

“When my father died,” Neil said slowly, carefully, picking his way around the words like he was walking into a dark room. “My whole world collapsed.”

Andrew drank.

“I’d been running my whole life,” Neil said. “I didn’t know how to stay still anymore.”

“So you didn’t,” Andrew supplied. Neil shook his head.

“More like, I had to relearn how to walk.”

“Are you?” Andrew asked. “Walking?”

“One step at a time,” Neil said. “One foot in front of the other.”

Andrew offered him the bottle, but he didn’t take it.

“We should go somewhere tomorrow,” Neil said, sitting up. His t-shirt got twisted up in the motion, collar slipping down to reveal vehement collarbones. “Somewhere fun.”

“Like what,” Andrew said.

“Wait here,” Neil said and got up. He left the room, then came back a moment later with a battered travel guide in his hand.

“That doesn’t look like fun,” Andrew muttered as Neil started flipping through the book.

“International Banana Museum,” he read out. “Tell me that’s not fun. The Man-Killing Clam, I wanna see that. Plastic Flamingo Petting Zoo? Sold. Hey, how about the Nuclear Waste Adventure Trail? Sounds like a party.”

“Give me that,” Andrew said, tugging the guide out of his hands and skimming the contents. “Here.”

“Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard,” Neil read. “You know they probably don’t sell ice-cream there, do you?”

“We are not going to the creepy ventriloquist museum.”

“Aw. But the Clown Motel?”

Andrew snatched the book back.

“Carhenge,” he said, decisively. “It’s like Stonehenge. But with cars.”

“Fascinating,” Neil said. “I’m intrigued by the Mustard Museum.”

“Hard pass.”

“The Gum Wall? It is, apparently, one of CNN’s germiest tourist attractions. Hang on, let me get a pen.”

Neil plotted out a route for them, painstakingly drawing a map on the back of a couple of receipts and labelling all the ridiculous tourist traps he wanted to visit. The wine buzzed in Andrew’s brain, made him sluggish and silly and aroused. Neil lay on his front and chewed on the end of his pen, t-shirt hanging off him, looking cool and enticing like an ice cube fresh out of the freezer.

Andrew rolled onto his side and slung his hands behind his back, out of the danger zone, watching him.

“What?” Neil asked softly, looking up.

“Nothing,” Andrew said. “Have you thought about me sucking your dick.”

Something unreadable crossed Neil’s face before he smoothed it out.

“You’re drunk,” he said.

“Am not.”

But Neil was already starting to scoot away.

“Good night, Andrew,” he said, turning off the lamp and the TV. Andrew heard him move through the darkness and shut the door behind him, then his footsteps fading down the hallway. He got up, locked his door, and fell back into bed.

-

They didn’t actually follow Neil’s tourist trap route, but every once in a while Neil managed to sneak one in and surprise Andrew.

There was a haunted house with lots of staircases leading nowhere, twisty corridors and slanted walls, and a creepy doll in a glass coffin. A museum with two-headed cows and rows upon rows of pickled eels, snakes and various fish that made Andrew think of Aaron by accident. A garden filled with statues of angels, from classic to abstract depictions, which prompted a long conversation about the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who, deep dark fears, and time travelling.

They stopped in some nondescript seaside town for a few days, but since neither of them could swim, they just stuck their feet in the water and looked out over the sea and ate fried fish and soft-serve ice-cream.

There were bad days.

There were okay days.

Possibly even good ones.

Sometimes they took turns and sometimes they both slept in the back of the van, Neil curled around his seal pillow and Andrew with his eyes on the stars until they fell closed. Some mornings Neil let Andrew brush the knots out of his hair. Some nights Andrew let Neil treat his insect bites for him.

They watched the Perseids together from the roof of the van, wide awake in the early hours of the morning, with cups of hot chocolate and a cigarette passed between their mouths. Andrew kept seeing flashes out of the corner of his eyes, but whenever he turned they were already gone.

“Hey,” Neil said, taking the cigarette and stubbing it out, smoke trailing from his nostrils. “Make a wish.”

Andrew caught his chin between his fingers and leaned in. He paused for a moment just before their lips met, giving Neil the opportunity to pull away, but Neil met him halfway like that was exactly what he’d been wishing for too, tasting like chocolate and smoke and night air.

They kissed, and kissed, and kissed. Meteors forgotten. Andrew shivered his hand up under Neil’s shirt and Neil let him, let him feel the soft, puckery scar tissue on his chest, the ones inflicted by choice like two comet trails among asteroids.

Neil had told him about them one warm, sticky night, sitting by a small bonfire they’d built while Andrew tried not to burn all of his marshmallows. Andrew had stayed silent, mentally scanning his memory for the flyers Nicky had used to bring home from his LGBT group meetings, trying to puzzle out how this new piece of information fit with everything he knew about Neil so far.

Now, Andrew thought about how to phrase his question, smoothing his thumb over the scars, then decided fuck it.

“Have you thought any more about me sucking your dick,” he asked, and Neil looked surprised for a moment, then shuddery when Andrew flicked his thumb over a nipple.

“Or,” Andrew started, reconsidering, but Neil caught his mouth in a hasty kiss.

“Dick is fine. And yeah,” he said quietly. “I have.”

“And?”

“And I’d like that. If you still want to.”

Andrew rolled himself on top of Neil, kissing him some more. He’d thought about it, too—had probed and prodded at himself, but it hadn’t bothered him that Neil was different.

It was Neil. Of course he was special.

He kissed down a meandering path over Neil’s shirt, sucked on his nipples through the fabric and palmed over his hipbones, nosed at the waistband of his sweatpants and the wild tangle of hair he exposed.

“Neil,” he said, mouth so close to him he could almost taste him on his tongue, “what do you like?”

“Dunno,” Neil said, muted, then reached down a hand. “Like this?”

He was showing Andrew how to touch him, and Andrew watched, transfixed, before batting his hand away and doing it for him. Neil wiggled and took his hand, spreading his fingers wider and bucking into them slowly.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Dry. I have lube… somewhere.”

“Can I,” Andrew asked, and Neil said, “Yes,” and gasped a little when Andrew pulled him into his mouth and sucked.

“Easy,” he panted, burying his hands in Andrew’s hair and tugging him off.

“Right,” Andrew said, gently blowing over the spit-slick skin. Neil moaned, sounding half turned on and half frustrated. Andrew turned his head to kiss the top of his thigh. “Want to keep going?”

“Uhuh, yeah,” Neil said, flicking his eyes open. “Oh, shooting star.”

“I’ll make you see stars,” Andrew muttered, then tried to recreate what Neil had done with his fingers earlier, rubbing along the sides of his dick and suckling more gently, pleased when Neil shuddered underneath him and folded one leg out and around, digging his heel into Andrew’s shoulder.

It took longer than he was used to, but Neil seemed determined, and together they made it work. He was very quiet when he came, his whole body strung taut beneath Andrew’s mouth and hands, holding his breath for so long Andrew started to think he’d done something wrong, but when he tried to move away Neil made a broken sound and flexed his hand and Andrew licked up his length again, pressing his tongue flat and heavy against him. Neil twitched, then became pliant and trembling and made a few panting, exhausted sounds. Andrew moved away, mouth sticky and tired, and sat up to give Neil some space.

He was almost surprised to become aware of his own arousal again.

“Okay,” Neil said after a moment, pulling his sweatpants up over his hips and clearing his throat. “Okay. That was… yeah. Good.”

“Yeah?” Andrew couldn’t help asking.

“Yeah,” Neil said again, tugging him down next to him. “It was you. Of course it was good.”

-

August floated to the ground, curling at the edges like a premature autumn leaf.

Wind rattled the windows of the store as Andrew looked down at the charger in his hand, then put it back on the rack. He went a little further down the aisle and picked a different one, one that would match the phone he was buying, before doubling back to get the other one after all.

Just in case.

He piled things on top—batteries, new headphones, a flashlight, a dumb keyring with a moose on it, a lighter that said “I Heart New York” with _heart_ actually spelled out—and went to check-out.

“Here,” he said, dumping the new phone and charger in Neil’s lap as he got into the car.

“What’s that for?” Neil asked blankly.

“Emergencies,” Andrew said.

“Okay,” Neil said, then picked up the phone and dropped it in the back without looking at it again.

Once he’d started the motor, Andrew twisted around and grabbed it. He hooked it to the portable charger he’d bought, set it up, and downloaded a podcast for them to listen to.

Neil was quiet the rest of the drive. He pulled into a motel around five, a wet dusk lurking close to the ground, dark clouds percolating in the sky.

“I’m going for a run,” he said, climbing into the back to get changed and leaving Andrew to secure a room for them.

A storm was brewing by the time he made it back. Andrew had showered and procured food and was sitting on his bed with the lights out and the windows open, watching a game show on TV. Neil made a beeline for the bathroom, then got into the other bed without even glancing at the food.

“Okay,” Andrew said into the darkness and the howling wind, and switched off the TV.

-

Neil slept in late the next morning. Andrew packed up their stuff, walked up and down the closed shop fronts of the strip mall that the motel was part of, and bought two coffees and some pastries when the only café opened at nine. Neil was waiting by the van when he got back, looking smudged and pale, and traded him a cup of coffee for his keys.

“You want me to drive?” Andrew said, staring at them.

“No, I want you to jet-ski,” Neil retorted, rolling his eyes and ducking into the passenger seat. “Come on.”

Andrew felt the ridges of the keys against his palm and slid into the driver’s seat, trying to find somewhere to put his coffee and pastries since the cup holder was filled with napkins from several different drive-thru places, crumpled flyers, and, for some reason, a half-empty tube of super glue.

“What’s that for?” he asked, nodding at it.

“You never know,” Neil said ominously. “Get a move on, will you? I sort of got into an argument with the asshole at the front desk and he threatened to have us towed if we don’t leave in the next five seconds.”

“Of course you did,” Andrew sighed, and started the car.

Neil sat scrunched up in his seat, staring listlessly out of the window at the hazy, dreary landscape. He picked at his food when they stopped for lunch, put an audiobook on when they got back in the car and switched it back off halfway through. At the next gas station, he finally climbed into the back, tucked himself in the corner of the mattress with his seal pillow, and took a resolute nap.

It was dark when he stirred again. Andrew had just been driving, unsure what else to do, listening to the silence and staring at the patchwork of headlights on the road. He’d connected his dead phone to its new charger, but hadn’t switched it on yet.

“What time is it?” Neil yawned, pale face peering out between the seats.

“Quarter to one,” Andrew said without glancing at the dashboard clock.

“Huh,” Neil said. “So it is.”

Andrew drove a bit further, then turned off down a dirt path and let the van rumble to a stop in a small copse of trees. Neil got out, stretched, and vanished to relieve himself somewhere in the shrubbery. Andrew let his feet dangle out of the open door and rolled an imaginary cigarette between his fingers. He hadn’t really felt the urge to smoke one lately, so he hadn’t stocked up their supply.

He picked up his phone, pinching it between two fingers. Tapped his thumb against the button and slowly, slowly pressed down.

The brightness of the screen was minty sharp in the dark. He waited for it to boot up and load any missed notifications, elbow on the steering wheel and fingertips swishing around the curve of his lips just for something to replace that niggling craving. Maybe Neil would be up for kissing when he came back.

He looked down at his phone. Swiped at the notifications without reading them. Then opened his messages anyway and found three from Aaron:

_Hey. Can we talk?_

_Ok then._

_Asshole._

He turned the screen off.

The van shuddered and creaked as Neil climbed into the passenger seat.

“We’re near Sacramento,” he said, something carefully controlled in his voice.

Andrew felt like a timer had suddenly flicked to life in his chest. It wasn’t his usual vague awareness of what time it was at any given moment, this one was limited and running out fast.

“I’ve been thinking,” Neil continued, fiddling with a stray wrapper. “Maybe it’s time I take you home.”

_Tick. Tick._

“Whatever,” Andrew said.

“Not that I didn’t enjoy this,” Neil tacked on.

“There is no this,” Andrew translated, then slid out of the driver’s seat. They switched places, and Andrew felt the shape of Neil’s keys in his palm one last time before handing them over.

“I mean, it was always going to be temporary,” Neil said as he started the car.

“Take the next exit,” Andrew instructed tonelessly. “Wake me up when you pass the billboard that says _God is always watching_ in Comic Sans.”

“Terrifying,” Neil said, pretending to shudder.

Andrew could have told him about some of the other truly apocalyptic billboards he’d seen when he’d helped Aaron move to Southern Florida. He could have let Neil know to keep an eye out for the sign to the abandoned UFO watch station, and they could have gone and had another magical night under the stars, just the two of them, just one last time.

Instead, he stayed silent.

-

The first thing he did when Neil dropped him off outside his apartment building, after opening all of the windows and locking himself in the bathroom to take a nice, long, uninterrupted piss, was sleep.

He woke up two hours later, mouth gummy and head buzzing, the scent of dust still lingering in his nose. His limbs ached. He thought of the warm apple smell of Neil’s van, the weak glow of the string lights, the taste of Neil’s arousal on his tongue.

Groaning, he rolled onto his back and pushed himself upright.

What little had been left in his fridge in the way of food was long expired, and the coffee looked dodgy enough that Andrew didn’t want to try his luck. He took a shower, put on an old pair of sweatpants and one of the awful touristy shirts Neil had bought him that first day, and sat down in his armchair, turning on his phone and calling his brother.

“Hey, asshole,” Aaron greeted him. “Bored of the silent treatment already? You used to last longer.”

“Phone was dead,” Andrew grunted.

“Am I supposed to believe you couldn’t find a charger or get a new one for three fucking months?”

“Just,” Andrew said, “shut up and listen for once.”

Aaron shut up.

By the time Andrew got off the phone with him, the day had been cracked wide open and Andrew’s stomach rumbled uncomfortably. He was about to turn off his phone when a new message came in from an unknown number.

_Hey_

_So_

_This is neil_

_You put your number in my phone I guess_

_we never went to the ice cream graveyard_

Andrew stared at the messages for a long moment, then he sat up and typed a response.

_Its in Vermont._

His phone buzzed in his hand with an incoming call barely a second after he’d sent it.

“Is that a challenge,” Neil said, somewhat breathlessly.

“Your car is a piece of shit,” Andrew replied. “It probably won’t even make it past the state line.”

“Hey, my golden gal might be old but she’s still spry. Wanna bet?”

“If you lose, I’m picking your next car. And we go to Carhenge.”

“I won’t,” Neil said cheerfully, “but sure. And if I win, we stay one night at the Clown Motel.”

“Fuck you.”

There was a sound like crinkling paper for a moment, like someone unfolding a map.

“Great,” Neil said. “It’s settled then.”

“Can we make a detour,” Andrew asked.

“Where to?”

“Florida.”

“Sure,” Neil said shrewdly. Andrew had made the mistake of telling him where his brother lived in a moment of weakness. He was never telling him anything ever again. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow, bright and early.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Shall we say, seven? So you can have a lie-in,” Neil chirped, voice rich with suppressed laughter.

“Fuck off. I won’t answer the door.”

“I’ll pick the lock.”

“I’ll put a knife in your throat.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Stop flirting with me,” Andrew grumbled, rubbing a hand over his face. He needed to get food. He needed to pack—get some more of the old woman’s life insurance money, maybe call Eden’s to let them know he wasn’t going to pick up any more shifts for a while, if he was feeling generous.

“Okay,” Neil said. “Don’t forget to pee, there won’t be any rest stops for a while once we leave town.”

“I’m hanging up,” Andrew told him, and hung up.

-

On a regular Wednesday morning, just after breakfast, Andrew left his apartment, closed the door behind him, and started walking towards the rest of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked this, sneak me some extra serotonin by leaving kudos and/or a comment - if you want more content like this, check out my other fics, subscribe to my author's profile for updates, or follow me on social media ([Tumblr](https://annawrites.tumblr.com/) / [Twitter](https://twitter.com/MoonixWrites)). But above all, take care of yourselves you lovely fools.


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